There exists a long-felt want for a disposable toothbrush, Patents dating back more than 50 years are a testament to this need. Unfortunately, toothbrushes designed for this purpose have usually been too awkward to use to have any significant mass-appeal. One prevalent problem occurring in prior art toothbrushes with self-contained dentifrice is that the supply of dentifrice is insufficient for distribution to the bristle area as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,432,245. Another problem is that the application of the dentifrice to the bristle area is perhaps too widespread and unhygienically messy as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,550,190 and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,165,776. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,524, the toothbrush handle defines a hollow container for receiving dentifrice and the handle is squeezed to extrude dentifrice into the bristle area. So that the handle can be held by the user during brushing, it must have a minimum rigidity and, accordingly, the handle will not remain in a collapsed condition after squeezing. Upon resumption of its original shape, some dentifrice may be sucked back into the handle because of the resulting vacuum. This problem is, in part, addressed in a second costlier embodiment in which a piston is moved along the length of the handle to extrude the dentifrice to the base of the bristle area.
It is an object of this invention to provide a disposable toothbrush which is convenient to use and which addresses at least some of the aforementioned problems.